Talk:Clock

Misuse of sources

This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

Please help by viewing the entry for this article shown at the cleanup page, and check the edits to ensure that any claims are valid, and that any references do in fact verify what is claimed. Tobby72 (talk) 18:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Article Review

This article for the most part is very well written and has few or no grammar or spelling errors. I do feel like certain sections of this article could be better place in other articles such as the article on time. For example there is a section talking about different systems of measuring time, and there is not very relevant to the article on clocks. This article also has a very small section about early mechanical clocks, which there is very little information in it. However the next section is titled “A new mechanism”, and this section is primarily about the further development of these early mechanical clocks that according to the above section we know little about, and we were never able to find any remains of. I feel like this section could be clarified to state whether they are talking about two types of early mechanical clocks, or if the contradictory information from the first section would be removed. In regards to the sections I feel like the seismology section of this article could be added to the usage of clocks section, as it is not necessary for it to be on its own. It may not also be a bad idea for this article to be divided into two articles as the Early Clocks are very different and would allow for more details to be displayed about the different types of eary clocks. This article is full of very helpful images for the first few sections however more images could be used to help to understand the operation of the older clocks such as the water clock and early mechanical clocks. In general the sources for this article look very reliable and relevant. Most of this come form either journals or books that are specifically about clocks, and there are not any references that are pointing to websites. This article covers the subject very well and in some ways covers more information than it needs to, as it covers items that could be placed in other articles. However despite the extra information, this article does not face detriment due to pointless rants or biased information from Wikipedia users. I feel like the article on this Wikipedia page is better than you will find in an encyclopedia as it is covering a broad range of clocks and in many section of the article has more images than you would be able to place in a regular encyclopedia. HIST406-10rlavoie (talk) 17:08, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Critique HIST406

The Wikipedia article on the clock is poorly organized. This critique is focused on the beginning of the article, from “Sundials and other devices” through “Later developments.” These separate groups could all be combined to form one group entitled something along the lines of “History of the Clock.” The rest of the article has meaningful subheadings such as “How the Clock Works” and “Purposes” so the with the history being divided into 4 separate categories is clunky and unnecessary.

Beyond that, the article is rather poorly written. It is not chronological. A discussion of the word “clock” is for some reason included in the section about the development of a new mechanism (the escapement). A reorganization of ideas would allow the article to read more smoothly. I tried to use the article previously and it was difficult to get a good idea of the origins and development of time keeping because it was so back and forth and overall cluttered.

Another thing that could use work in this article is the references. Some of them are informative and helpful, but others are simply last names and a page number with a broken link that takes you nowhere. I wanted to investigate where the article got a lot of its historical information and could only find dead ends and no means of finding anything else out or verifying any of the information on my own. For example, reference number 2 simply says “Turner 1984, p. 1” with a broken link. There are multiple instances of this and it needs improvement. On another note, many of the facts are not cited at all and are marked as “citation needed.”

The images are one thing that is well done in the article. They show the clocks in their historical context. One critique I could give about them, however, is that it could use more pictures or illustrations of any actual clocks that were used at a given time. Most of the images are from manuscripts that show documentation that that culture had or used clocks or time keeping devices but little of the mechanics involved are depicted, even though that is a huge focus of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HIST406-10seadams (talk • contribs) 20:47, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The clock of Piazza dei Signori in Padua obviously hasn't original gears but the design is original of Jacopo Dondi 1344. Other old clock example is in San Giacomo di Rialto in Venice date 1410 and must have lot of original components.

"...I inherited my great-grandfather adze with a handle redone by my grandfather and the blade redone by my father... but it remains my great-grandfather adze...... "

I think it is the same for ancient mechanical clocks... in the numerous towers around the old Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.24 (talk) 13:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you kidding me?

"Originally invented by Sam Lalruatpuia, the clock is one of the oldest human inventions..."

Who the hell is Sam Lalruatpuia??? In all the world wide web the only instance of Sam Lalruatpuia is here in Wiki on the entry for "clock".

Q: What does this mean: "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable."

A: Nothing

Pretty well shows Wiki for what it is, a dumping ground for any and every one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ResIpsaWiki (talk • contribs) 19:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

That was just vandalism from an anonymous user. Surprising that one of the bots didn't catch it, but it was only up for about 25 mintes before you deleted it. Don't know what your second qa is supposed to mean. This page is vandalised frequently, because even stupid people have heard of a 'clock'. Cormullion (talk) 17:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Horloge-republicaine0.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Horloge-republicaine0.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Copyright violations What should I do? Don't panic; deletions can take a little longer at Commons than they do on Wikipedia. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion (although please review Commons guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Commons Undeletion Request This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 06:57, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed the image in this article to File:Clock-french-republic.jpg from Wikimedia Cormullion (talk) 08:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

HIST406 Critique, October 2011

I read about the history of the clock on Wikipedia by going to the "Clock" entry on Wikipedia and reading the "Early mechanical clocks" section and subsequent subsections. The section is about 2,000 words. The section itself is easy to read, which is one of the big benefits of Wikipedia -- the content is easy to follow and a lot of the more complicated terms are clickable, so you can find out exactly what the terms mean on other Wikipedia articles.

Still the section is a bit cluttered. The one big suggestion for the section I'd make so that it reads a little better is to knock out some of minor information about each step in the timeline of developing clocks so that the section doesn't read as a repetitive timeline of minor events. I'd try to focus on some of the bigger events a little more. Britannica's entry on clocks runs through the history of the clock in a little easier to understand and there's an emphasis on the bigger takeaways a reader should have. That said, the Wikipedia section covers the history of the clock extremely well. It touches on clockmaking from 1176 to the 20th century, hitting on tons of clocks, including water-powered clocks, astronomical clocks, and different mechanical clocks.

There are five illustrations within the confines of the section, and they add little if anything to the reader. None of the illustrations shown link back to anything said in the body of the section. I like when I see something written down in a paragraph and I can immediately see something that illustrates what I'm reading about. Two of the illustrations are of a pocket watch and French bracket watch, none of which are directly mentioned within the body of the section.

There are 23 sources tied to this section of the "Clocks" entry, so it's a fairly heavily cited section relative to Wikipedia standards. The majority of the sources are both authoritative and clickable, so I can easily go right to the linked source and make my own judgment on the source if I so please. But one of the source stands out over the rest due to its incompleteness. It just reads "History of Song 宋史, Vol. 340," without any link to take me to what the "History of Song" is. I found that odd and would want to have a better citation for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HIST406-11wjackso1 (talk • contribs) 05:54, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Use of Cell Phone

I have changed this to mobile phone from cell, a term recognised (or handy) in the rest of the world.